


Trust/Fall

by Erradianwhocantread



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/F, Rule 63, alternative ending, garbage crack, gratuitous and disgusting use of metaphor and simile
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-08 13:37:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11647650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erradianwhocantread/pseuds/Erradianwhocantread
Summary: I stumbled across a suggestion that Fingon, rather than dying at the Nirnaeth, gets captured, and Maedhros and Turin create the Doom Team to go bust Fingon and Hurin out of jail and then I thought... but what if it somehow worked?Maedhros frees Fingon, who insists on freeing all the other captives instead of just getting the hell out of dodge, and then they go to take on Morgoth. This is indulgent garbage, spare yourselves.





	Trust/Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Fingon gets captured at the Nirnaeth. Several years later, Maedhros and Turin team up to break the High King and Hurin out of Angband. At some point during the rescue, literal comic book villain Sauron presents Maedhros with the "you can save your beloved, or get the Silmarils, and I know which one you have to pick" style choice. Maedhros somehow manages both (throws Fingon a knife before going for the crown maybe?), gets the crown, puts it on Fingon so the Oath can't be used against them again. Fingon pulls a Fingolfin and starts glowing with leeroy jenkins righteous outrage, frees the captives, inspires a revolt. Meanwhile, Hurin and Turin are in the background taking care of dragons because they're human and can do that. And then, because of fucking course, Fingon decides to go after Melkor, to put an end for this once and for all. So have some of Maedhros's thoughts on it. Also they're women here because I said so and this is my heroic tragic love au. And now, as the narrator on Jane the Virgin says, you are caught up.

_ Trust Me _

 

It was part request, part command, part hope, always part hope, when Fingon asked it of her, ordered it of her, set the bright possibility before her and offered it with her whole heart. It was not often she did so, it was not often that she had to. Maedhros trusted her like she trusted her lungs to fill with air when she breathed in. She could count on her one hand the number of times Fingon had had to prompt her to trust. To breathe. 

 

_ Trust me _

 

She had said it below the window at Formenos, when lies were between their families. When her presence there, if she was seen, could be interpreted as an act of espionage, of aggression.  _ I won’t be seen, trust me.  _ And below that assurance was a deeper one, that she hadn’t believed a word of Melkor’s lies, that the poisons spat by Maedhros’ father and by her siblings had not altered her in Fingon’s eyes, and deeper still that Fingon was not, could never be, as those twisted rumors would have her.  _ Trust me _ , she’d said, and Maedhros had scrambled down from her window as quietly as possible.

 

_ Trust me _

 

She had commanded it at the cliff face.  _ Live, and trust me _ . Maedhros had not wanted to. It was cruel, to ask her to believe that this was Fingon, after thirty years of bitter lessons in duplicity; to ask her to believe that Fingon would come for her, when her own family would not, when she had left Fingon to die on the ice, and that Fingon would want her to live now. It was cruel to ask her to trust that this invitation to life was not merely an invitation to more pain. And yet Fingon was not asking, and the blade was at her wrist. Even the part of her that recognized Fingon still after all the malicious illusions did not wish to live, did not wish to return, wished only for rest and for release, wished to breathe out and never breathe back in.  _ Trust me _ , she’d ordered, and Maedhros had had no choice.

 

_ Trust me _

 

She had offered it when they were wed properly, though for the second time, at Fingolfin’s insistence. They sat facing each other under starlight at the streambank, and Maedhros balked, a bird suddenly afflicted with vertigo. She had trusted blindly before, had not known the terrible domination that could come of letting another into your mind, of another being in your mind. Fingon, too, had trusted blindly before. She could not have known what manner of darkness she joined herself to. The cliff face echoed in her reluctance,  _ no, it will hurt, please, no more pain, I don’t want anymore. _ And yet she knew it would not, for this was Fingon, not the Enemy, not his Lieutenant, bright and shining Fingon, who sat before her, open, inviting, safe, undemanding, happy for whatever she could give and hopeful it would be nothing more or less than herself. Maedhros had trembled and hesitated like a fledgling on a branch.  _ Trust me _ , she’d offered, and Maedhros had soared.

 

_ Trust me _

  
Maedhros had done the impossible. She had snuck into the Enemy’s fortress, she had, against everything, freed High King Fingon from her chains, had reclaimed the Silmarils, had crowned her love with light, had helped her king free the captives, had sent the orcs and balrogs and dark things scurrying before the wrath of the Unchained. Surely, surely that was enough. Let it be enough. She had thought to die in her attempt, had dreamed beyond hope to free Fingon and escape with her. She had freed her, and freed the jewels, and freed their people, and now, could they not escape? They could, of course they could, for a time. As they had escaped for a time before. She knew as well as Fingon, better perhaps, that there was no true escape as long as their Enemy remained at liberty. She had as much cause for vengeance against him, at least, as Fingon. They each had a grandparent, parents, cousins, friends, and their own liberties, and Fingon a brother besides, for which to make him pay. They each knew the horror they could spare the generations of the free. Fingon was at her side, shining like Varda in the glory of her wrath, adamant as Justice, fell as her mother before her, and yet. And yet they could not win. Fingolfin had succeeded only in wounding, and her body had not been bowed down and ruined by slow years of torment. They could not win, and the path led up and out of the fortress and none would dare bar their escape. They could not win, but perhaps, if their scattered and bickering people, and the Unchained who would follow them to freedom, could see their king returned in glory with the Silmarils, with so many lost, leaving Angband in chaos, perhaps their spirits would be lifted, perhaps the blue flame that burned in Fingon’s eyes would spread and spread until all Beleriand carried it as a torch and then, then they could return and risk it. They could not win against the Morgoth in single combat, and the path led up and out, and Maedhros longed to take it, longed as a drowning person longs towards the sky.  _ Please _ . She cast it at Fingon’s feet as one condemned casts themself at the judge’s feet for mercy undeserved. The light of the Trees blazed on Fingon’s brow, and the light of the Flame Imperishable blazed in her heart.  _ Trust me _ , Fingon hoped, commanded, pled. And Maedhros followed.

**Author's Note:**

> They will win in that they will injure Morgoth's body so badly he cannot stay in physical form. They will not win in that they will die doing so.


End file.
